Cardiac axons follow coronary vessels in embryonic heart

Cardiac sympathetic axons (green) follow VSMC-associated large-diameter coronary vessels in the subepicardium of the dorsal ventricular wall of the developing mouse heart. The image was selected as the cover of the issue in Development (Nam et al. Development 140: 1475-1485, 2013).

Venous expression of EphB1 in embryonic limb skin vasculature

Whole-mount triple immunofluorescence analysis of forelimb skin of .5 embryos was performed with antibodies to (green) in combination with the pan-endothelial cell marker PECAM-1 (blue) and the vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) marker alpha SMA (red). By .5, arterial vessels are densely covered with VSMCs, whereas less or no VSMC coverage occurs in venous vessels. expression is restricted to the venous vasculature. No expression is detectable in the arterial and lymphatic vasculature. The image was published in Developmental Dynamics (Li et al. Dev Dyn 2013).

Gut angiogenesis and neurogenesis

An embryonic day (E)15.5 whole-mount small intestine stained with antibodies to PECAM1 (blood vessels, blue), TuJ1 (neuronal tubulin, neurons, green), and tyrosine hydroxylase (sympathetic neurons, red). Here, the enteric nervous system (ENS, green) can be seen surrounding the full length of the small intestine. Sympathetic nerves (red and green) project along arteries in the mesentery until they reach the intestinal wall. Upon reaching the ENS, these nerves defasciculate and extend throughout the existing enteric nerve plexus. The image was published in Developmental Dynamics (Hatch & Mukouyama, Dev Dyn 2014).